Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men.
Alice Ross, Cliodhna Hughes, Eddie L. Ungless and Catherine Lai. (2025). 'Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men.' Interspeech 2025, 674-678.
CV
Education
- PhD, UKRI CDT in Natural Language Processing, University of Edinburgh, 2023-
- MSc Developmental Linguistics (With Distinction), University of Edinburgh, 2022
- MA (Hons) Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (2.1), University of Edinburgh, 2006
Research interests
- Feminist and anarchist HCI
- Prosody and communicative goals
- ‘Atypical’ and disfluent speech
- Users’ experiences of synthesised speech and voice interfaces
- Speech technology in language acquisition and development
- Technology in society: ethics, ideologies, and (in)justice
Publications
Beyond the binary: Limitations and possibilities of gender-related speech technology research.
Ariadna Sanchez, Alice Ross, and Nina Markl (2024). 'Beyond the binary: Limitations and possibilities of gender-related speech technology research.' IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop 2024, 526-532.
Is there an uncanny valley for speech? Investigating listeners’ evaluations of realistic TTS voices.
Alice Ross, Martin Corley and Catherine Lai. (2024). 'Is there an uncanny valley for speech? Investigating listeners' evaluations of realistic TTS voices.' Speech Prosody 2024, 1115-1119.
Talks and presentations
Gender, style-shifting and authenticity in speech: insights from trans speakers
Talk at Language Variation and Change Research Group, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Identity and ideology in commercial TTS
Talk at Division of Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH) Seminar at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men
Conference proceedings talk at Lavender Languages and Linguistics 31, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men
Conference proceedings talk at Interspeech Special Session on Queer and Trans Speech Science and Technology, Rotterdam
Ideology and discrimination in commercial text-to-speech
Talk at Center for Humans and Machines lab, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men
Conference proceedings talk at UK and Ireland Speech, University of York, York
Speaking Out: Three projects related to speech and gender
Talk at Centre for Speech Technology Research Talks, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Beyond the binary: Limitations and possibilities of gender-related speech technology research
Talk at Gender and Social Cognition reading group, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Ideology, power and bias in the design of ‘human-like’ synthetic speech
Poster at ISCA/ITG Workshop on Diversity in Large Speech and Language Models, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and German Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Berlin, Berlin
Posters
- Conveying gender through speech: insights from trans men, UKRI NLP and Designing Responsible NLP CDT Joint Summit, June 2025
- Ideology, discrimination and bias in synthesised voice design, ISCA/ITG Workshop on Diversity in Large Speech and Language Models, February 2025
- Is there an uncanny valley for speech? Investigating listeners’ evaluations of realistic synthesised voices, Speech Prosody, July 2024
Prizes, grants and awards
2023 - 2027, PhD Funding, UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Natural Language Processing, University of Edinburgh
Full scholarship covering tuition fees, programme costs and stipend2022, Best Poster, Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference, University of Edinburgh
Prize for best poster (£50)
Other professional activities
The 4th Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin, August 2024
Maison de la culture yiddish - Bibliothèque Medem, hosted by the Osteuropa-Institut at Freie Universität Berlin
The 4th LITHME Training school, May 2024
Language in the Human-Machine Era, hosted by the University of Hradec Králové, funded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology
The 2nd Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin, August 2022
Maison de la culture yiddish - Bibliothèque Medem, hosted by the Osteuropa-Institut at Freie Universität Berlin
Other publications
2024, Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice, anthology, ed. C. Milstein
M. Holleb and A. Ross, Pink Peacock: Lavishly Accessible2022, Radical Jewish Calendar 5783, artwork
A. Ross, Always Carry A Book2020, There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart, anthology, ed. C. Milstein
A. Ross, And You Shall Love